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Updated: June 23, 2025
"Have you a flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah! here is one, marked 3s. 6d. Yes, that is the price. Well; when your mamma's birthday comes again, we must buy her another. That is some months to wait. And we can wait, Master Sisty. For truth, that blooms all the year round, is better than a poor geranium; and a word that is never broken, is better than a piece of delf."
Their delf cups might have been Dresden, the black ware teapot solid silver, the coarse table-cloth damask for the very air which he spread around the breakfast arrangements. One might have fancied that he infused an orange-pekoe flavour into the rough muddy congou for which Bunting exacted the highest price.
No room and no preparation for a meal could have offered a more striking contrast to Augusta Goold's dining-room, her groups of wineglasses, multiplicity of heavy-handled knives and forks, and her candles shrouded in silk. Nor was the dainty neatness less remote from the cracked delf and huddled sordidness of his old home.
In North America, fragments of delf ware have been discovered in places where there exist lines of fortification, and the walls of towns constructed by some unknown nation, now entirely extinct. The paintings on these fragments have a great similitude to those which are executed in our days on earthenware by the natives of Louisiana and Florida.
The dresser, with its shelves of mingled delf and pewter, occupied its ancient and important station. Only it might be noticed that the pewter was more dull than of yore, and that sundry cracks made their erratic wanderings over the yellow surface of the delf. The eye of the mistress had become less keen than heretofore, and the care of the hand maid had, of necessity, relaxed.
In the sitting-room, for by that term we shall designate the principal apartment, a bright coal fire was blazing cheerily in the large open fire-place, casting its pleasant light over the spotless and carefully sanded floor, gleaming on the plastered walls, and lingering to see itself gaily reflected on the shining pewter, and brightly colored delf, that, neatly arranged on the bowed shelves of the snowy dresser, were evidently the pride of the housekeeper.
The tea was served out of a majestic delf teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses, tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies.
His majesty, much troubled, desired a cover to be placed for her, but it was of common delf, for he had ordered from his jeweller only seven gold dishes for the seven fairies aforesaid. The elderly fairy thought herself neglected, and muttered angry menaces, which were overheard by one of the younger fairies, who chanced to sit beside her.
But the tea must have sugar; and I could not bear that they should drink it out of mugs, without any teaspoons; so to please myself I sent for a little delf ware and a few pewter spoons. Little by little my list grew. I found that Darry knew something about letters; could write a bit; and would prize the means of writing as a very rare treasure and pleasure.
The comical miscreant no sooner made his appearance than, like Liston, when coming on the stage, he was greeted with a general roar of laughter. "So," said he, "you have a conjurer above. But wait a while; by the powdhers o' delf Rantin' Rody's the boy will try his mettle. If he can look farther than his nose, I'm the lad will find it out.
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